Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-kaisha

Shunsuke Mizutani

Tetsuya Ouchi

Kenta Horade

Tomohiro Kondo

Mariko Niizeki

Jun Morikawa

Kensuke Hirate

A tape cassette includes a cassette case, a tape roll, a print tape wound around the tape roll, a ribbon roll, an ink ribbon wound around the ribbon roll, a recess, an arm portion, and a guide. The print tape and the ink ribbon are conveyed inside the cassette case and the arm portion. The arm portion includes a discharge port to discharge the print tape and the ink ribbon. The guide is provided at a position downstream of the discharge port, on a conveyance path of the print tape and the ink ribbon. A first end of the guide includes a roller members configured to rotate around a shaft extending in the up-down direction. The guide is configured to guide the ink ribbon, by the first end coming into contact with the ink ribbon, to a winding path branching from the conveyance path and toward the ribbon winding spool.

Tape cassette

A tape cassette includes a recess formed on a part of a side wall of a cassette case, an arm portion, a roller partly exposed from the tape cassette, a first protrusion including a first leading end, and a second protrusion including a second leading end. The first leading end and the second leading end protrudes toward first side. The first leading end is positioned on a first virtual line or further to the first side than the first virtual line. The first virtual line connects an exposed part of an outer peripheral surface of the roller with a connection portion between the recess and a wall comprising the arm portion. The second leading end is positioned further to the first side than a second virtual line. The second virtual line connects the exposed part of the outer peripheral surface of the roller with the first leading end.

A printing apparatus, including a sheet conveyer unit with a first roller unit, a printer unit, and a controller, is provided. The controller executes a first-face printing process, wherein an image is printed on a first face of a sheet; a switchback process, wherein the sheet after the first-face printing process is conveyed in a reverse direction by the first roller unit; a second-face printing process, wherein the image is printed on a second face of the sheet; a first ink amount determining process to determine whether an ink amount discharged in the first-face printing process at an end area of the sheet is one of greater than and equal to a first threshold amount; and a switchback setting process, wherein, if the ink amount is smaller than the first threshold amount, a rotation speed of the first roller unit is set at a higher rotation speed.

Printing apparatus

An inkjet printer has a printing head, a sheet conveying mechanism, a carriage mounting a printing head and configured to be reciprocally movable in a printing area and non-printing area. A cap is provided to be movable between a capping position an uncap position. A controller of the inkjet printer is configured to execute a printing process, a standby process, and a capping process in which the controller causes the carriage to move to the non-printing area and moves the cap from the uncap position to the capping position. The controller causes the carriage to move into the printing area when the next printing command is received after the standby process is finished and before the carriage moving process has been completed.

Inkjet printer

A controller of an inkjet recording apparatus executes, after receiving a recording instruction, first flushing by controlling a recording head to idly eject ink toward a cap from which the ink is discharged by a pump to a detachable waste ink tank. After executing the first flushing, the controller executes image recording by controlling a conveying unit and a recording head to repeat a unit action in which the recording head ejects ink onto a recording medium conveyed by a predetermined line feed length in a conveying direction. After detecting arrival of a flushing timing during the image recording both when a threshold time elapses and when one of repeated unit actions is completed, the controller executes second flushing by controlling the recording head to idly eject ink toward a fixed ink receiving member.

Inkjet recording apparatus

A printing device configured to operate selectively in one of a single-sided printing mode and a double-sided printing mode comprises a printing unit configured to eject ink, and a controller. When the printing device operates in the double-sided printing mode, the controller is configured to calculate a drying time for a front-side image printed by the printing unit on a front side of a sheet, and to determine whether the calculated drying time exceeds a predetermined threshold value. When the controller determines that the drying time dose not exceed the predetermined threshold value, the controller is configured to control the printing unit to print a back-side image on a back side of the sheet. When the controller determines that the drying time exceeds the predetermined threshold value, the controller is configured to control the printing unit not to print the back-side image on the back side of the sheet, and to print the back-side image on a front side of a next sheet.

Printing device and computer program product for use in printing device

An image recording apparatus includes a sheet feed tray, a sheet feed roller, an image recording unit, an output unit, a first conveying unit configured to convey a recording medium from the sheet feed tray to the output unit via the image recording unit, and a second conveying unit configured to return the recording medium, which has conveyed via the image recording unit, to the sheet feed tray. The image recording medium further includes an image memory configured to store image data to be recorded by the image recording unit and a controller configured to control the sheet feed roller, the image recording unit, the first conveying unit, and the second conveying unit to record the image on the recording medium. The controller is configured to control the sheet feed roller to start feeding a following recording medium subsequent to a preceding recording medium fed by the sheet feed roller irrespective of whether or not the image data for the following recording medium is stored in the image memory. The controller is further configured to, when it is determined that there is no image data stored therein, return the following recording medium to the sheet feed tray via the image recording unit and via the second conveying unit.

Image recording apparatus

An image recording apparatus including: a sheet-feed mechanism; a sheet-detect portion; an image recording portion having a nozzle face; a cap for covering the nozzle face; a sucking mechanism; a drive source which generates a drive force; a drive-force transmitting mechanism which transmits one of a forward-direction drive force and a reverse-direction drive force to the sheet-feed mechanism and the sucking mechanism respectively for feeding of the sheet in one direction by the sheet-feed mechanism and an operation of the sucking mechanism, and which transmits the other thereof to the sheet-feed mechanism for feeding of the sheet in another direction by the sheet-feed mechanism; and a controller which controls the drive source such that the sheet is fed in the one direction and discharged without the feeding in said other direction by the sheet-feed mechanism after the sheet-detect portion has detected the sheet during the operation of the sucking mechanism.

An image recorder includes a driving source generating any of a first-direction force and a second-direction force, a function executing mechanism executing a functional operation, a switching mechanism switching between a first state to allow the function executing mechanism to execute the functional operation and a second state to forbid the function executing mechanism to execute the functional operation, a transmission mechanism transmitting the first-direction force to a feed roller unit and the function executing mechanism and transmitting the second-direction force to the feed roller unit and the switching mechanism, and a controller that after detection of a sheet on a tray, controls the driving source to generate the second-direction force such that the switching mechanism switches to the second state, and thereafter controls the driving source to generate the first-direction force such that the feed roller unit nips the sheet on the tray.

Image recorder

An image recording apparatus having a both-side printing function for ejecting ink to record images on a first face and a second face of a recording medium is provided. The image recording apparatus includes: a conveying unit which conveys the recording medium; a driving unit which drives the conveying unit; a conveying path along which the recording medium is conveyed; a holding unit which is provided on the conveying path and holds a part of the recording medium; and a controller which controls the image recording apparatus to enter a power saving mode of interrupting power supply to at least the driving unit in a state that the recording medium is held by the holding unit, after the image is recorded on the first face of the recording medium but before the image is recoded on the second face of the recording medium.

An image processing device has a main unit, a storage unit, a first processing unit, a second processing unit, a first determination unit, and a first replacement unit. The storage unit is provided in the main unit that stores a color image having ground color and different color from the ground color, the color image being formed by color-pixels including a ground color pixel and a different color pixel, the ground color pixel having the ground color, the different color pixel having the different color. The first processing unit scales down the color image to produce a first gray-scale image which is simply represented by brightness having a plurality of brightness values, the first gray-scale image being formed by first gray-scale pixels. The second processing unit determines the brightness value of each of the color pixels to produce a histogram showing a distribution of the color pixels with respect to the brightness. The first determination unit determines a first threshold level based on the histogram to distinguish the ground color pixel from the different color pixel. The first replacement unit compares the brightness value of at least one of the color pixels with the first threshold level to detect the ground color pixel, the first replacement unit replacing the detected ground color pixel with a white color pixel to produce a processed color image, the white color pixel having white color.

Image processing device

An inkjet printer includes: a print head; a maintaining unit; a timing unit; a notifying unit; a maintenance command determining unit; and a maintenance operation executing unit. The print head is formed with one or more ink ejection opening for printing a printing medium by ejecting ink through the ink ejection opening. The maintaining unit restores the ink ejection state of the print head by flowing ink through the ink ejection opening. The timing unit keeps track of an elapsed time after the maintaining unit has executed a maintenance operation. The notifying unit notifies a user when it is time to execute a maintenance operation if the elapsed time measured by the timing unit exceeds a prescribed time. The maintenance command determining unit determines whether or not the user has issued a command to execute a maintenance operation with the maintaining unit after the notifying unit has issued a notification. The maintenance operation executing unit executes a maintenance operation with the maintaining unit when the maintenance command determining unit determines that the user has issued a command to execute the maintenance operation.

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Shunsuke Mizutani